LUKASHESKU PERSONALITY CULT EMERGING IN BELARUS.

Hard on the heels of president Aleksandr Lukashenko’s assumption of absolute powers, the state has launched a special-issue postage stamp bearing Lukashenko’s portrait. One Lukashenko costs 2,500 Belarus rubles, which amounts to not quite 11 US cents. (Belapan, December 10). Minsk wags now refer to the president as Lukashesku, by analogy to the late Romanian dictator Ceaushescu.

Radical Military Reform on the Table in Russia?